How an Internet Toiletry Gimmick Remade Mexican Sex Education

May Alba handing out condoms in Tuxtla, Mexico. Photo: Rubberit

The Dollar Shave Club delivers cheap razor blades and butt wipes right to dudes’ doors so they don’t have to deal with the inconvenience of actually going to the store. Founder Michael Dubin says he wants to help men have more fun with online shopping. “Women have all the fun,” he says, “with fashion, shoes, and accessories.”

In other words, this is a tech startup that’s about as far removed from a charitable organization as you can get. But when Dubin and company released a video announcing their venture, May Alba suddenly envisioned a new way to help the less fortunate in her native Mexico. “When I saw the Dollar Shave Club video, my head exploded a little bit,” she says. “I thought: ‘I could use the same model and adapt it in this other context where you could save lives.’”

Alba’s new company, Rubberit, aims to make buying condoms as convenient as shopping for razors on the Dollar Shave Club. That’s already been done by the likes of the not-so-cleverly named Dollar Rubber Club, RabbitBox, and Sir Richard’s Condom Company, but Rubberit operates on an entirely different level. If you buy one, you also give one to someone in need — and you help fund sex education and public outreach efforts across Mexico and, one day, beyond.

When Alba saw the Dollar Shave Club video, a friend had recently died of AIDS and she’d been toying with founding a non-governmental organization, or NGO, to deliver sex education and free condoms to people who didn’t have access to them. But the video inspired her to ditch the idea in favor of an operation that needn’t rely on donations. She applied to a Mexico City-based startup accelerator, 500 Mexico City, and after being accepted, she built her new company with the help of her brother Sebastian and friend Ricardo Gutierrez, whom she met through Twitter.

Rubberit, which Alba calls an NGO-wannabe, has the same “buy one, give one away” model as other charity-oriented outfits like Warby Parker and Tom’s Shoes. But it goes further. It’s designed to help the giver as well as the receiver. In countries like Mexico — where having premarital sex, discussing sex, or buying condoms is still taboo — a service like Rubberit helps the public good even if you’re the one buying.

The average Mexican adult has sex 123 times a year, but only uses a condom four of those times, according to recent stats referenced by the Mexican newspaper Milenio. And only about 50 percent of teens reported using condoms the first time they had sex. But Alba aims to change that.

Almost a year after launching, Rubberit’s 5,000 customers — most of whom are underaged — are buying an average of 50,000 condoms per month. You can sign up for a monthly or bimonthly subscription and order up to 20 of their favorite condoms, and you can choose a fake name for the return-address label to keep things confidential. Customers have designated friends, their schools, and even Mickey Mouse, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, and Steve Jobs as faux senders.

At the same time, Rubberit is leveraging these sales to promote sex education and access to condoms in underserved communities throughout Mexico. So far, the company has organized two condom drives during which they’ve handed out a total of 28,000 rubbers, and it’s planning a third giveaway for later this year. The location hasn’t been decided, but the state of Jalisco, where HIV cases are particularly prevalent, is high on the list.

Right now, the company only has the manpower to distribute free condoms in Mexico, though it also sells rubbers in Chile, Argentina, Panama, Colombia, and Hong Kong. Alba hopes that, as the company grows and establishes relationships with NGOs in other countries, it will expand its “buy one, give one” model internationally. The company is also working on partnering with schools, like the Universidad Autonoma de Chiapas and CONALEP, to help them distribute condoms to students.

“We’re trying to eliminate that relationship we have stuck in our heads between what’s moral and what’s clinical,” Alba says. “We’re going after the clinical…and going to people with facts” about sexually transmitted diseases, contraception, and how to take control of their sex lives. The company is especially interested in empowering women and teaching them they can be more than wives and mothers. That entails working with community leaders and organizations and gaining the respect and trust of the people they’re trying to help.

“This is a business based on trust,” says Alba. “It’s only because people trust us that they’re willing to let us send them their condoms. That’s what’s lacking when they go to the pharmacy – that feeling of trust and comfort.”